Grown Ups

Director: Dennis Dugan
Cast: Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, Rob Schneider and Salma Hayek
Releasing in cinemas: 24 June 2010
Rated: PG

Would you be willing to fork over big bucks just to watch a home movie of Adam Sandler and his family and friends enjoying themselves over a long weekend at a picturesque lakeside cabin? If so, then Grown Ups is definitely the film for you! If not, then it’s probably best to avoid Sandler’s new low brow comedy.

This is a comedy liberally spiced with plenty of infantile humour and physically punishing pratfalls. And, like many of Sandler’s later films, it is also interspersed with some well-meaning messages about family, friendships, brotherhood, mortality, and the importance of appreciating the important things in life.

Sandler has assembled many of his Saturday Night Live colleagues (including Kevin James, Chris Rock and regulars Rob Schneider and David Spade) for this laboured comedy about a group of former high school friends who reunite to attend the funeral of their former high school basketball coach. They then spend the 4th of July weekend at a lakeside retreat that holds fond memories for them from their adolescence. Thirty years ago they were part of a championship basketball team, and now they are coping with the usual stresses of family life and the sense of failure as they approach middle age.

Sandler plays Lenny Feder, a high powered Hollywood agent who is married to the beautiful fashion designer (Salma Hayek). James plays Eric, an overweight model of soft parenting; Rock plays Kurt, an ineffectual stay at home Mister Mom type; Spade plays Marcus, the wise-cracking single guy and wannabe swinger; while Schneider plays Rob, a new age healer who has a penchant for older women. As they gather for the weekend, the five men reflect on their lives and their failings. Much of the sophomore humour consists of the five friends insulting each other with casual ease and putting each other down.

There is some lazy direction from Dennis Dugan, who has handled many of Sandler’s recent films, and who seems willing to indulge his star. There is plenty of unnecessary padding here that stretches the thin premise, and most of the hi-jinks at the water theme park are irrelevant. It is also hard to believe that their spoiled, snobby and technologically savvy kids would so quickly adapt and embrace the more simple pleasures of life that their parents enjoyed at their age.

The film also wastes a talented supporting cast that includes Hayek, who is clearly slumming it here and whose performance lacks her usual spark. The biggest laughs come from Steve Buscemi in his full body cast.

We’ve seen plenty of these nostalgic reunions before, although with more genuine pathos, wit, and substance. Those who despair at the lack of genuine wit and clever humour in contemporary American cinema will find little here to change their opinion. Just because Sandler and friends obviously had a lot of fun making this film doesn’t mean that you will necessarily enjoy watching it.

Greg King

Read more of Greg King's reviews at filmreviews.net.au